And there goes 2015…

Never one to shy away from jumping on the nearest available bandwagon, Have I Got Social Enterprise News For You this week contains a round up of some of the best news stories and articles from the year.

Thanks to all of who have sent things my way over the year, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading the round up every Friday. See you in 2016!

@davemcglashan

January

• We hosted one of our irregular Social Enterprise Question Time events (they tend to occur in line with sightings of Halley’s Comet) which posed the question ‘Social Investment: Friend or Foe?’. The conclusion? You can find out here.

February

• SEUK organised the Social Value Summit. Nick Temple wrote a summary of the day. 
• Social Good Guides published loads of useful guides for ‘startup changemakers’, covering topics such as branding, strategy, website development and more.

March

• SSE Chair of Trustees Charlotte Young gave 5 tips on building a board for your social enterprise. 
• Russell Brand opened the Trew Era Cafe, a social enterprise run by recovering drug addicts. Could 2016 be the year that he comes on a course at SSE?
• The Alternative Commission on Social Investment launched their report into the UK social investment market, along with a number of recommendations for how it can be made more accessible to charities and social enterprises.

April

• Our Communications Manager Leonie took the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand on a social enterprise bus tour of London.
• Jake Hayman caused a stir with his article Not Fit For Purpose: Why I’m Done With the Foundation World. There are some excellent comments below the article too and a response from Toby Blume: Fit for purpose foundations and the ‘grant making tango’.

May

• A good month for advisory articles. ‘Nail it before you scale it‘ cautioned Suzanne Biegel. ‘How I’m Making My Social Enterprise Sustainable‘ offered Jane Chen.
• The Psychology of Pricing: a Gigantic List of Strategies. A tremendously useful resource, which has recently been updated.

June

• ‘Communications as a Reform Tool for the United Nations‘ is an excellent guide to help you handle any media work that you may get involved with.
• I gave you 5 reasons to attend our Transition to Trading course – it’s coming around again at the end of March. (The list could quite easily be 50 reasons…)

July

• What corporate sponsors look for in a charity partnership – featuring the School for Social Entrepreneurs.
• How to write a funding bid – top tips from Tony Wallace, who runs our bid writing workshop.
• Do you know your senior debt from your working capital? If not, you need Charity Bank’s social finance jargon buster.

August

• ‘For social enterprises, focus can be a competitive advantage when it comes to impact’. An interesting article by Dave Algoso which argues that social enterprises are strongest by Doing Less, Better.
• The ultimate reading list: 50+ books that entrepreneurs should read – handy if you got some book tokens for Christmas and need some inspiration.
• Charging for services, trading and ethics (put a poka-yoke in your pipeline) – NCVO take a detailed look at diversifying income away for grants. (Time for me to shoehorn in another plug for our Transition to Trading course).

September

• Social Enterprise Scotland published the Social Enterprise in Scotland Census 2015. 
• What is social investment? pondered Phil Caroe over on Pioneers Post.
• I sat in on our Working with Corporates workshop and highlighted some of the key themes from the day. 
• SEUK released the State of Social Enterprise 2015 and David Floyd combed through the details. 

October

• Social enterprise champion and founder of the Big Issue John Bird was appointed to the House of Lords.
• Comms Manager Leonie continued in her unofficial role of SSE Global Ambassador when she ventured to Kazakhstan with the British Council.

November

• Jem Stein of The Bike Project was crowned Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2015. 
• George Clooney visited Social Bite, a social enterprise in Edinburgh.
• The Young Foundation marked the centennial year of the birth of Michael Young (who also founded SSE).
• The Guardian put together a handy guide to resources and tools for measuring social impact. 

December

• Build the company that you want to work for has some good tips for how startups can create a create a positive work culture.
• HCT Group raised a massive £10 million from social investors.
• What are the alternatives to grant funding? Good question. Lambeth Firesouls provide some answers.
• David Floyd rounded off the year with his piece ‘Another year over and is social enterprise really the answer?’

What’s on at SSE

• Devon Social Enterprise Programme, SSE Dartington, starts 13th Jan
• Kickstart Your Social Media Strategy, SSE London, 21st January
• Crowdfunding for Social Enterprises, SSE London, 27th January
• An Introduction to Legal Structures, SSE London, 28th January
• Leadership Development, SSE London, starts 17th February
• Action Learning Facilitator Training, SSE North East, starts 11th February
• Replication and Social Franchising, SSE London, starts 25th February